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Sorry for the rambling I'm trying to remember everything that happened.

Ok so here's how it went down. They said they would call sometime between 1 and 3. 12:55 and I had the phone right next to my computer. At 1:05, I get a call from "UNKNOWN NUMBER" but by the time I picked it up (less than one second) the call was already gone. I was so pissed thinking I had missed the opportunity.

Then about 20 minutes later it rang again, and it was the same chick I had spoken with the day before. She kind of went through what I wanted to say again with her and told me not to interrupt, but to feel free to INTERJECT. She said that he is a "fierce debater" and not to shy away when if he gets angry or "shuts you down." She then said "don't say you were called, don't say your last name, don't use bluetooth or speaker phone."

She said she would put me on hold, for what could be 5 minutes or 15 minutes. At this point I set up my computer camera to record the conversation, but before I could even open the program all of the sudden I could hear on the phone Sean Hannity coming back to commercial, saying "Ok lets get to some calls, we've got Patrick in GA, Patrick?"

I probably sound weird at the very beginning cause I was caught off guard, but here's basically what I said at the beginning, which I had kind of planned out.

I prefaced everything by saying that a Santorum controversy didn't really matter because he did so poorly in the debate last night. Then I said something like "I wanted to shed some light as to why people are turned off to Santorum's comments about SATAN attacking America. The republican Party has attached itself so closely to the religious right, they're alienating themselves against a lot of people/independants." I'm not completely sure what I said next, something about how many people have a relationship with God/a higher power, but politicians using literal interpretations of the Bible just distance themselves from the average American.

To his credit, I think he let me get through my entire point before saying anything, but he immediately went weird. He started talking about evil, and how liberals don't want to admit there is evil in the world, and I said NO, people believe in evil just not that it's satan with a pitchfork. He then listed through random historical events like the Holocaust, Ho Chi Minh field massacres, 9/11, asking me if I thought each one was evil. I said that yes they were each evil, and then he asked me what the word evil meant and where it came from and wasn't there a force that causes people to do evil?

I said that yes evil comes from fear and anger and hatred, not from SATAN. I think then he went into if i could travel back in time wouldn't it be right for me to kill hitler to stop evil, and I think I said no, I wouldn't kill a 10 year old hitler, he interrupted and said he wouldn't either, but what about later in his life when he was rising to power? I think i said I would have tried to stop him or imprison him but that yeah if it came to Kill Hitler or let the Holocaust happen, of course I would Kill Hitler.

Somehow I think I then told him that he was a hypocrite talking about evil coming from SATAN when Sean himself deals with fear and hatred and anger every day. He goes "I'm NOT fearful!" and I said no you're not fearful but , and I think I said this, "you are a harborer of hate/fear."

He then said that "well if I'm full of anger and fear then by your definition, I am evil right?" And I said yes. yes you are!

He said well then you would support someone coming in and removing me from the air because I am evil? I said morally yes but legally no, our country has a first amendment that protects you but that Morally we would be better off if your show was ended.

He then responded "Well my audience is going to be morally better off when i do this!" CUE DRAMATIC HANG UP!

Then it was over! I immediately started CRACKING UP laughing and got all the people in my house who I made go outside to come back in. Hannity was fuming! It was awesome.

His show is starting right now and I'm trying to get something to record it besides my iphone mic, can anyone record the stream?

EDIT 2: Ok it's over...may do a transcript soon.

EDIT 3: Guys, what did you expect? You expect him to just calmly admit that I was right? He completely avoided my point, and then started asking if I would kill Hitler. Being louder and interrupting me doesn't mean he's winning, I never expected to convince him of anything. What could I have said at that point? I thought the whole thing was hilarious and weird and fun and the people who are saying I got demolished I'm just wondering if he beat me so badly why did he have to hang up on me so angrily? I loved it that I made him mad.

Just heard the thing, tried to call in after you to try and further your point. I actually got through to the screener and she quickly hung up on me.

As a liberal who subjects himself to Rush and Sean regularly just to be mad about something, let me say, you. did. amazing.

Most people, he tries to get them to back down, you were nervous about standing up saying he was evil, but it made you sound so much more legit. Most liberals on these calls and don't want to stand by the things they're saying, and you kept him from making you sound completely unreasonable.

It irritated me he got completely off topic, about your point about independents.

I wanted to call in and explain it's not the concept of evil that turns off independents, it's the concept of personified, intelligent, evil forces, working to destroy america. It doesn't offer any answers to actual social ills.

Great job though. I don't think you actually made him angry, I've heard him angry. He tried a decent counter argument, but his strategy was trying to bait you into an absurd position about Hitler so he could shame you into submission on the air. You didn't take it, it threw him off, and losing the high ground he hung up. Probably more for time then it was a lack of interest, as to regain his position in the debate would have taken another 5 or 10 minutes based on how you out maneuvered him.

It’s widely accepted that Hitler was evil. But what exactly makes him evil? Many would say that he killed innocent people. Then what about President Truman who dropped two atomic bombs on civilians? Or bombing Europe into rubble? What about the bombing of Dresden? There has to be a definition of what is evil. Plato argued that evil is “ignorance”. Later, the definition of evil was narrowed to mean “militant ignorance”, which was further refined to mean “ignorant fanatical tyranny”. It is ignorance that gives rise to fanaticism and tyranny. This is what is happening to the Right. Hannity is a TV embodiment of ignorant fanatical tyranny. The very evil he warns his viewers about. Someone should confront him on that.

I'm afraid I must disagree with your philosophy. While you have represented the classic view of ethics simplisticly enough given the context, there has been considerable advancement in the ideas of moral philosophy since then. If you are to make the claim that Hitler is evil you have several frameworks in which to do so, for example: because he killed more people than he helped (utilitarianism), or because he waged an aggressive war which is wrong on face (deontological).

But really, the ethics of modern times involve social relativism and socially pragmatic definitions of good and evil. Really, if you want to get right down to it, disagreeing with this point is the root of perhaps the entirety of the culture wars. Which is something I would love to write about at length but.. time and place, I suppose? In any case, to link this back to the Hitler analogy in the context of this modern view of ethics (which ironically, the proper name for is postmodern ethics), one would say that Hitler is evil in most societies because he violates norms that are common to those societies.

I don't think there is such thing as evil. Anyone who would fit the form of true evil (on satanic levels) would be unable to function to a point that they would not be able to do anything, let alone rise to power. Even people who worship Satan aren't evil.

The reason for this is that everyone I can think of who is widely considered to be evil has some sort of logical thinking behind what they do. All this talk about Islamic extremists and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being insane and evil is complete rubbish. They all have some sort of goal that is positive in their opinion.

Not many people seem to be able to fathom true evil. The people who come closest to this description are so vile that they are not accepted in ANY society. And even then, were they born that way or did some sort of twisted upbringing fuck them up in the head? This means it isn't entirely their fault.

(Disclaimer: Read the last paragraph before you go nuts).
Ignorant? I am uncertain of your definiton. Hitler believed that the laws of evolution should govern the nations, that they should struggle directly through war for dominance and resources and that the superior would be victorious, thus producing and refining the best of humanity. These are ideas derived from the theory of evolution, an important scientific principle of the time (arguably a highly warped and misunderstood version of it). In other words he based much of his ideology on "scientific" theory (misunderstandings, willful or not abound in that ideology though).

He was also a vegetarian, a non-smoker in a time when most people smoked, did not drink alcohol and he believed that it was important for the nation to provide the people with a common goal, an ideal to strive directly towards, including supporting families and individuals in developing themselves to the best they could be (so that they may serve the nation in the best possible way). His thinking grows out of several great philosophers such as Kant and Nietsche.

On the other hand, he was also a ruthless evil bastard who wanted the direct destruction of all which he felt was opposed to the greatness of the German nation, including the mentally disabled, gypsies, communists and others, most notably the Jews. He personally is responsible for the murder and deaths of tens of millions of people, if anything makes anyone evil, that would be it, but his evil was not sparked from ignorance, it was sparked out of a deliberate understanding of war as necessary for the improvement of Man, and an abhorrent view of some cultures as not only inferior, but as directly destructive to the greater culture. I disagree (as do most sane people) with that conclusion, but can you say that it stems from ignorance? Perhaps a warped idea of humanity, but nonetheless a developed (though flawed) idea of what humanity is. Compare this to what many Republicans today spout and you will quickly realise that they have no coherent thoughts behind their opinions.

If Hitler was ever ignorant it was in his completely random and unjustified division of entire peoples as groups into higher and lower, with the Germans at the top and Jews at the bottom. If anything, the European Jews would eventually prove themselves to be the opposite of "destroyers of culture", and the contributions of ashkenasi Jews to science and culture is on a per capita basis unrivalled.

There is a difference between Hitler and Bush, and that is that Hitler's murders were intentional. Bush was arguably completely incapable of understanding the consequences of his actions, Hitler was not. Of course, that does not make Bush's actions forgiveable, but they are of a different aspect, more sparked from ignorance than deliberate evil.

I do not think that it is ignorance that drove Hitler and Stalin to evil, on the contrary, it was a deliberate and callous decision to designate human beings as having no value and acting on that with the most horrid cruelty on a vast scale.

Those who deny facts are willfully ignorant. Those who spread their ignorance to others are fanatics. Those who force their ignorance on others are tyrants. Ignorance gives rise to fanaticism and tyranny.

Hitler and his followers were driven by ignorant fantasies that led them to commit evil.

I don't think GW was a good guy, but I don't think you can compare the things he did with putting people through what amounts to a factory line of death after starving them and overworking them until they are no longer capable of helping you in any way. War is bad, yes, death camps are magnitudes worse.

The knowledge directly gained from the experiments at the camps (nitrogen for farming alone helps feed 2,000,000,000+ people, freezing people without killing them is what makes heart transplants possible and so on)- so for every one person who died in the Holocaust about 120 people are alive today because of it.

Well said. Terrible things happened in the holocaust I am certainly not a supporter of what happened, but through terrible evil there was amazing good that came out of the despicable medical practices that happened. Many lost there lives, but to not use the medical information in the ways that they were murdered is a wasteful evil. A lot of medical researchers dont use the information because of how much blood and lives it cost to get. Simply disregarding the findings people died for is tragic and evil in its own right.

Bush was famously ignorant, he pursued his goals despite the harm he was causing, and was extremely inflexible. On the other hand, Obama is well educated and knowledgeable, he refuses to pursue his own agenda, and insists on consensus. It is a travesty to compare these two man. That said, I personally do not approve of Obama.

Out if the remaining 98% though you have to include agnostics as well as those who follow a religion but don't subscribe to personified evil in the form of a being like Satan. On phone ATM but can look up stats about this later.

The majority of American Christians do not believe that Satan is a real being or that the Holy Spirit is a living entity, the latest Barna survey has found...about 35 per cent of American Christians believe Satan is real.

I can see where your coming from, but the main problem that comes from this particular point of view clashes with the conservative ideology of personal responsibility. Which is why me and the OP have quite the slighted view of this particular pearl of wisdom.

In this segment that we're discussing, evil was framed as the reason people do bad things. It's sort of funny, in a way, that evangelicals believe in a personal relationship with Jesus, and by virtue of that mentality, inherintly believe in a personal relationship with Satan. Sounds odd, but think about it. My relationship with Jesus would cause me to do good, and my flesh or the enemy or whatever round about way you want to refer to the He who Must Not Be Named of evangelical Christianity tempts me or causes me to do wrong is foolish. End of story.

By making evil the root of wrong action, instead of the consequence thereof, it becomes a method people can be judged evil by nature, you've relieved them of the responsibly of making right action later; you've let them off the hook, but that's OK because Hitler should just have been assassinated, and not subject to due process of law where his actions could have been held in account (this is hypothetical of course saying we had the means of going back in time and detaining him before his suicide). Evil isn't the root of behavior, but an adjective to describe the consequences of behavior that harms other people, whether in some small influential way, or in a catastrophic, life taking way, or somewhere in between.

St. Augustine of Hippo, argued with the Manicheeans about the origin of evil. The Manicheeans insisted that a dark force or presence, a person hood of evil drove men to make choices that were opposed to God. Augustine asked them a rather interesting Socratic question in response... He said: Could God be harmed by evil? If they answered no, then it invalidated their argument (for reasons I'll explain in a second) if they answered yes then they blasphmied, for then God would not be God if he could be harmed.

Augustine argued that no part of God was corruptible by evil, and for us to be created by God, then we were in part an offshoot of his being, and thus by proxy, incorruptible in nature as well. Augustine, however never quite managed to eloquently explain the root of evil, but ultimately to believe that because Hitler killed 6 million Jews, satan was involved and influenced that outcome, or with Pol Pot, that satan was whispering sweet nothings into the ears of these despots, is sophomoric conclusion to draw at best.

The personification of evil is a tenant of many religious beliefs and in the U.S. less than 2% of citizens claim to be atheistic. Assuming that the offense you take at the mention of Satan will be shared by other citizens is ridiculously arrogant and closed minded.

I think if we tried to define evil, we'd come back very quickly to the nature of Sin. I think it would be relevant to address your ad hominen attack on my 'arrogance' by directly addressing the premise in which you've drawn that conclusion, by going straight to the source with what I believe is a reasonable interpretation of evil and it's nature.

So the first time in the Bible, post garden of Eden, mankind has rules to follow is when Moses receives the commandments on Mt. Sinii. I've felt, and I have no reasonable basis to draw this conclusion, that those commandments were not designed to be arbitrary do's and don'ts, however, rules designed to protect society and the individual from harm.

Now many atheist redditors may be quick to point out the absurd rules in leviticus, but bare in mind, Leviticus was intended in large part for the tribe of Levi, and in second part, to distinguish the Jews as an independent culture from their neighbors, distinguishing them as a unique people; ultimately an advanced social construct primer intended to preserve Jewish culture for... well let's just say a while.

Evil isn't a presence then. It is a consequence of incorrect action. Evil cannot be personified waging war against the spirit as the spirit is immutable and from God, and redeemed through Christ, but even Redemption isn't necessary for Augustine's argument to stand.

The genocide of a people is evil and in the case of the Holocaust is the consequence of fear, and hatred, and propaganda. That the massacre happened, and continued to happen so long wasn't the result so much of the actions of one man or even his SS or the generals in his army, but how the common person looked the other way while it was happening.

So why does that even matter here, why go into Hitler in the current political climate considering it's red herring as hell... Well... the United States is founded on an equality principal, that, by nature of Christian's living here in the United States means that treating others with respect and integrity is the right action; demonizing non-believers for seeing things from a non biblical viewpoint creates the environment for sin to happen, for consequences and fall out of incorrect behavior to become more likely. Worse still, is when it's reinforced by a pontificating self righteous radio hosts because his listeners on some level need him to be. Hannity's entertainment value can be understood by the format of his show--- designed to circle jerk with people who agree with his point of view; hell his call screener looks for 'stupid' liberals to have on his show. Combine that with a religious view point that they alone have 'the truth creates the potential for one group of individuals to feel superior because they know the truth above everyone else, drawing anyone who shares his viewpoint to conclude that everyone else who has a differing point of view to be arrogant and closed minded; when it is simply just another point of view.

TL;DR the Concept of a intelligent evil compromises the Conservative argument of personal responsibility.

Well it’s kind of moot to talk about Santorum now because he basically threw himself off a cliff last night, but I wanted to shed some light as to why some people were turned off to Santorum’s comments about Satan attacking America. And I just think that because the Republican Party has attached itself so closely to the religious right, they’re kind of alienating themselves against independents. Many American shave a relationship with God, but politicians with literal interpretations of the Bible, referring to Satan like he’s some guy with a pitchfork, it just works to distance themselves from the average American I think.

So you can’t talk about…so when evil…when Reagan talked about the Evil Empire, you think that was over the top.

I think that it’s one thing talking about evil, and it’s another thing talking about Satan, like, with some map in Hell with his sights on America, it’s just gonna turn some people off you know? I think its-

Evil exists. Then why can’t you speak the truth without people…uh, for example, what’s more controversial? The idea or the concept or the belief that there’s good and evil…for example, uh Nazi Germany was evil right?

Ok, so my question to you is why then ,it… why you so upset that someone would acknowledge what is obviously a truth? A truth that you acknowledge?

Uh, no, the problem is that he’s no just talking about evil, he’s talking about “Satan.” And that’s a literal interpretation of the Bible that makes people uncomfortable.

Make…so you can’t talk about…so you can talk about evil, but you can’t use the word Satan.

I…yeah, that’s what I’m basically saying that…not that I am offended by when somebody says the word Satan, but that’s what turns independents off, when you get that kind of religious rhetoric, you know. I would love to talk about evil, you know, you talk about evil a lot, but I think it’s kind of hypocritical for you to talk about evil like it’s some foreign force, that you know, comes from Satan when it’s more borne out of something like hatred and fear, two things that you seem to work with every day.

So you don’t actually believe there are evil – oh so I’m hateful every day?! So basically you’re saying I’m evil by your own definition?

I’m saying that you are a harborer of fear and anger, and those two things lead to-

Harborer of fear? I’m not fearful at all! I’m not angry either-

No, you are a dealer of fear, you make people fearful.

I make people fearful…so basically you’re saying I’m evil.

...You’re getting there. (I had to cover the phone at this point cause we were laughing!)

Well then what is evil? Is evil just a word to you? It’s not anything, no …in other words there’s no spiritual forces that guide the human experience?

No I don’t think that it’s a spiritual, that evil is a spiritual thing, I think it comes from human things, like human emotions like fear, and anger, and-

And where does fear and anger come from?

It comes from other people, I think.

Ah, so when, for example, when somebody thinks they’re doing god’s will and they strap bombs on their own kids, it’s not evil, it’s just a thought process that went wrong, it’s a mental illness.

I believe that on some level, either there’s something wrong with that person, or that there’s something, you know –

Alright, alright, I get what you’re saying but you know what, Patrick, if I’m evil then you’d be well within your rights to destroy me wouldn’t you? (I’m laughing) If I was destroyed that would be good because I’m not a good person, I’m evil.

I think that it would only, you know, continue the cycle of evilness if I destroyed you.

So in other words…well, if that’s the argument, here, then you would say that if you have an Adolf Hitler in your lifetime, I would argue Ahmadinijad, by saying he wants a modern day Holocaust, denying the first holocaust, and that he wants to wipe Israel off the map, I think that’s evil you’re saying that it would be just as evil to take out Ahmadinijad before he hit Israel?

I think that it would be just as evil to murder a 10-year-old Hitler as it would be-

Not a 10-year-old Hitler, let’s say the Hitler that was beginning to build the death camps, and the Hitler that was you know…that was…going after different individuals and groups of people.

Yeah, I mean I wouldn’t want to murder him, no I’d want to lock him up and-

If you had an opportunity to stop the holocaust, you wouldn’t take hitler out because that would be as big an evil.

No (I’m saying no to his assumption), I would try to lock him up maybe, I wouldn’t try and-

You would try and lock him up but you wouldn’t try and kill him? Like if it was… we made a mistake by killing Bin Ladin.

If it was between killing him and the Holocaust , yes o-

Oh so you would kill people, so you would.

Yes of course I would kill Hitler.

But in my case it would be a good thing if the government came and locked me up, they don’t necessarily have to kill me, but because I’m evil, based on your definition, I should probably be shut up.

I think yeah, that would be great. If you retired- (I thought he said “I should probably shut up”)

No forget about retirement, I’m not talking about, no, no. You- but if I’m evil I should be shut down, people should come in…if what I am doing on the radio is what you say it is, then I should be shut down and it would be morally good to shut me down.

I think it would be morally good, I don’t think there’s any legal grounds to do that.

In other words, and if anybody came and the government wanted to shut down talk radio because there’s quote ‘too much hate and you don’t like it” instead of you just-

No, that’s not, I’m not saying…no I’m saying it would be Morally good, not legally justified. You know, freedom of speech lets you say whatever you want, you’ve got a lot of fans that believe the same things you do, so that’s…I don’t think somebody would be right to- somebody come and shut you down, I said morally, that would be, I think, a good thing.

Morally a good thing? Well you know what’s going to be morally a good thing for my listeners to this program right now?

I think you did a pretty good job. The only thing that could have gone better (and I know it's different when it's live ) is that you shouldn't have called him evil. He wanted you to do that so he could trivialize your argument (I would have hard time passing up the opportunity too though ). You should have said something like the fear he instills in others prompts them to do evil things. You could have said for example that the Koran isn't evil, but Bin Ladin's use of its teachings to spread fear of the west is, that fear is how we get from being Islamic to strapping bombs to kids. The same is true of Hitler, Satan didn't cause / allow him to do evil things the fear he created allowed him to turn the Weimar republic into the 3rd Reich., the fear of Jewish people, etc. Is what allowed him to do evil things.

If prompted about how he is causing people to do bad things. I would talk about hate crimes directed at muslims in the United states who have nothing to do with al Qaida, Iran, or any legitimate middle east threat.

I used to be a big Hannity fan, and I can attest that small chinks in the armor of his argument work at converting people away. Moving over to Bill O'Reilly actually really helped - he had different beliefs than Sean in a few ways, which helped me to realize that there was no one standard answer to everything. Bill is only about 80% full of crap but that small step was a big deal to me.

I think you did fucking awesome. There is no "winning" an argument against a talk show host (either conservative or liberal or anything) because they have their viewer "credibility" and no matter what they say their viewers/listeners are going to say yeah so-and-so was so spot on that other guy is an idiot. What you did do was get your point of view out in a, I'm going to use the term polite but only in so much as you didn't yell or cut him off you did call the man evil after all, fashion. Which is all that can be asked. Sean Hannity is a fucking nutjob and you let him know so, good on ya!

I listen from time to time and actually when someone calls in with a dissenting point of view I get to hear it. I'm sure others like me feel the same. Winning in my opinion is bringing out the hypocrisy of the host. Having it be laid out for all to see. I know this is lost on the majority but there are still many who see the truth in it.

Just listened. Great job man. Hannity is an idiot and I'm surprised you could come back so quickly when he used completely illogical questions like: 'If evil doesn't come from satan, where does it come from?' He is a sarcastic condescending bastard. I imagine the pause after was him having a rage-stroke.

The thing I found really creepy about that "would you kill Hitler" dialogue is that Santorum has recently compared Obama to a 1930's Hitler. I wonder if the Secret Service are hoping Santorum wins the nomination just so they can keep a closer eye on him?

Holy shit. Great Job. How did you even follow his thought tangents? It's very obvious that when he gets backed into a corner he just tries to ask a lot of unrelated questions just to try and throw you off of your point. I think he hung up on you because he felt you were getting more comfortable and were about to start asking him the questions (about the topic ya'll were originally talking about).

You know, I detest Hannity but it sounds like he had a decent discussion with you and the dramatic hangup came at a reasonable point. You did a good job detailing your views within the restrictions allowed, and to his credit he dealt with you somewhat fairly.

Nice job man, I always have fantasize about calling him and getting the better of him. I have listened enough to know how he spins the point to to make you answer yes to pointless questions that somehow prove his point. Proud of you though. I tried to listen today but couldn't.

If you listen closely, Hannity's responses are like a cry for help. He all but admits his evilness and his desire to be destroyed, but his dark lords keep him from saying it outright. "Why won't they let me die?" he seems on the verge of saying.

Hahaha that was awesome! Not sure who else heard it, but I thought it was hysterical! My original point I think was made well, but he just goes into weird territory, it's hard to follow and think on the spot but I didn't think I did too bad. I recorded it and will make a transcript if anyone is interested!

I used to be able to catch some Hannity fairly regularly when my work schedule was different, but now it's only Limbaugh snippets on my lunch hour. This reminds me of how much I miss Hannity's absolute nonsense. Love how he tried (and failed) to bait you a few times into flat-out insulting him. And how he tried to change the topic from Satan to Evil.

I was actually caught off guard with how well you did. Thanks for posting about it!

When it comes to whether he legally has the right, he doesn't, per the supreme court...

A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a...frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.

So, next time you get a chance to "call in" (I love how open they make the shows sound, I've called into local shows in Minneapolis, they screen the ever loving shit out of you and if they discern you're capable of expressing the opposing opinion succinctly, or at all, you're not let through).

I just wanted people to realize that what Hannity does isn't a private citizen freely speaking. It's a part of a political enterprise as well as a corporation, he does it for money, he does it at the behest of a political party (which is why he, and all the major talkers get the RNC talking points daily, and openly admit as much). So, while it's a slippery slope, I'd much rather mandate that both sides get to discuss the points of the day on a for profit program than have a 24/7 spinfest that solely benefits a single party. It's propaganda, in it's most visceral and dangerous form, and is easily one of the biggest reasons I can cite for the downfall of the working class and middle class in this country, shit, I could write "what's the matter with kansas" in 2 words: Talk Radio.

The more I think about the back story and read the transcript the more I think he planned this out. The OP conducted himself extremely well, but Hannity had a plan, and that was to get him to the point where he could say "look how much the left hates you, they want to shut me down."

Hannity pulled it off beautifully, you can hear the switch over. After that Reagan comment he got on script. The conversation even has the appearance of a debate, "what's more controversial...." "aren't these things evil..." the OP was essentially allowed three inputs, his initial point, is evil real, and do you think I should be shut down? The rest is window dressing where Hannity gets to be louder and in the mind of his audience "wins."

I'm trying to decide how much of it was planned out, like, was that question about Reagan bait, "you don't think COMMUNISM IS EVIL!?"

Not bad, I think the best part is that you kept your cool throughout. While I don't completely agree with all of your points, I think you articulated a point of view very well that is normally marginalized and caricatured on his show. And his manner of dismissing you at the end was rather elitist, making a moral judgment for what's best for his audience, and doing so in a setting-myself-up-for-a-joke sort of way.

You did amazing. He was trying so hard to get you to trip up and fall into one of his traps, and you just made him look ridiculous to anyone with any sense of logic (albeit this doesn't apply to many listeners, but hopefully a few.)

Because if Hitler had not come to power my grandparents would never of meet at the defense plant, gotten married, or produced my mother. Killing Hitler would be killing me and most of the people alive today. It is a real shame about what happened, but it happened. It made the world what it is today, Einstein would of never written that letter to Roosevelt pleading for nuclear research to produce a atom bomb before Hitler did. The cold war probably would not of happened, and we would not of had the technological advances that the coldwar produces. (The internet is a great example of one of these).

I am not saying that it should ever happen again, but changing history is a double edged sword kill someone important to history and you kill yourself if you were born after that history happened.

You ever hear the theory that our major technological breakthroughs come about because of war and porn? Personally I would be perfectly comfortable setting back technology 10 or even 20 or more years to save the victims of the holocaust. I would be willing to give up your birth, your parent's birth, my birth, and many others because you're not really killing them. They would never have been while other people that aren't will be or have been. Take away my goddamn internet if it means the millions upon millions of lives lost during WWII. I cannot agree in the slightest that you would prefer both a holocaust and a cold war so that you can be born and have a few creature comforts. We don't know what would have happened if Hitler was killed but you can't use the excuses you did. They are just poorly thought out.

You are making the assumption that simply killing Hitler would cause the Holocaust not to exist, and that the world would then unfold in a more positive way. That could be, but could not.

Hitler didn't dream up his ideas out of the ether. he was a rabid fan of a man who wrote an anti-Semitic, pro-German Nationalist newsletter when he was hoboing around Vienna. The Nazi Party, millions strong, agreed with everything he said. Anti-Semitism was rampant in Germany, Poland, France etc. long before Hitler came on the scene.

Had the war not happened, perhaps someone who was killed in the fighting would have lived, or someone murdered in the Holocaust would have, and achieved even greater heights of evil than Hitler, or Stalin.

I was a lifeguard once. I saved many children from drowning. If, perchance, one of those children grew up to commit murder, should I be consumed with guilt because I saved him many years ago? Would I go back and not save him?

You're forgetting about the different millions of people that would exist with things having been different, plus those lives would never have existed, thus they wouldn't really miss it.

I'm not saying you should or should not kill Hitler. It's a complicated issue and it's why they won't let me time travel anymore. What I am saying is that you're reasoning is a bit selfish and short sighted. You want it because it brought your family together but it also tore millions of families apart. You are putting your wants above those of the entire world when you are given the chance to make a decision that will affect the entire world. All I'm saying is there are a lot of factors that you choose to ignore.

The different millions of people didn't come into existence are out weighted by those who do exist. I am far from the only person who would suddenly never had been born if Hitler was killed by a time traveler. Why should we be called selfish because we want to exist?

Those who died during WW2 don't have more right than those living today. Why should I suddenly feel guilty because I am not willing to end my existence for the continuation of theirs?

I know, you had a good plan, but he knocked you off track. Talk radio hosts are experts at derailing conversations with slightly related questions, then taking you further and further away from your original point.

In one way, it makes sense aesthetically: having someone just call in and deliver their statement isn't as exciting as someone having a conversation with the host.

It's true, my friend made the point that he's a professional arguer, and my question might have made him uncomfortable so he moved into weird Hitler land, which is like his home court, and while I think I held my own I should have returned to my original point, which he never addressed at all.

he was taking an extreme position to lead you into what he thought would win him the argument on the basis of subjective and objective truths by pushing you into a recursive loop hinging on the presupposition that there are no grey areas, and that evil deserves to die, then make it about him. lol. I was hoping you'd go into due process, the rule of law, but you were probably dizzy at that point by all his mental jujitsu.

Exactly. He avoided your original point and went into different territory and finally hung up on you. This is exactly what his audience loves to hear him to do "liberal" callers. You played right into it.

You have a bizarre idea of what winning an argument means. Hannity didn't win a single point, all he did was shift and shift, losing each point after the next, and then hung up. The only people that would hear that discussion and think Hannity made a cogent point are people that would think that no matter what. There are millions of people tuning in. A good chunk of them are more open minded than that, and I'm sure OP made out well for a number of listeners. But that really doesn't matter, if you care about reason, then OP won on the merits of the argument. If all you see is a weird popularity and style contest, then you would be a pretty shallow thinking person like his base audience.

Dude I just heard it. You were played straight into his hands. Probably not all your fault. They picked you because of it. I'm not sure I would have done much better, though, and I'm not saying you did horrible, I'm just saying everything as I see it.
Much love.

This guy is just a troll, don't worry about it. If you said what you said, you did great and I'm proud of you. If evil does exist, Hannity is absolutely evil. He deals in absolute orchestrated disinformation and destruction. And the irony is that he is EXACTLY the Nazi type. If he were in Germany in the 30s and 40s he would be a passionate Hitler lover, I'd bet my life savings on it.

I've always been tempted to call into those shows but always figure they would pass me up or I just didn't have the balls at the moment. I salute thee!

The fact that you think Hannity ever sounds reasonable speaks volumes. I didn't call him a Nazi, I said he would've been. I think he would be one of the first to pledge allegiance to fascism if a Bush type leader took us in that direction. If you listened to him ever during Bush, it's not much of a stretch. I don't buy the whole thing where you can't mention WWII Germany. The lesson I get from studying it is that it can happen anywhere. They were modern, complex humans in a modern society just like us. They were not born monsters, they succumbed to a horrible mentality. I would not put many people on Hannity's level of dickheadedness, I wouldn't use such comparisons lightly but I really think he is a terrible person. If a modern form of evil fascism came to this country, it is reasonable to believe that a segment of the population would turn to it. They used to call them crypto-fascists. If I could identify anyone in the media as a crypto-fascist Hannity would be one of the first. He is a stereotypical pit bull henchmen for his team, and his perverted nationalism is disgusting. You clearly have a soft spot for him or his side of issues, and you are obviously just trolling on top of that.

Even if theshinepolicy got edited or whatever, at least he took a shot to his face. Whether anyone heard it properly or not doesn't matter. People like Hannity speak on a megaphone like a cult leader and don't allow for any accountability for their words because they manipulate what gets on air. They never truly get confronted on the shit they do, at least Hannity got a shot of truth to his face even if he's the only one who heard it. He has to live with himself.